Review: Girls & Boys is a must-see, even if it’s uncomfortable

Girls & Boys is showing at Auckland’s ASB Waterfront Theatre until September 22. Photo / Jinki Cambronero
OPINION
Varsha Anjali reviews renowned British playwright Dennis Kelly’s Girls & Boys as it starts its season with the Auckland Theatre Company at the ASB Waterfront Theatre.
A woman with no name stood there, beaming. She wore plain white shoes, plain white trousers, and a plain white singlet. Behind her: a plain white wall. Yet, nothing about Beatriz Romilly’s performance of the woman in the harrowingly compelling play that opened Thursday at the ASB Waterfront Theatre was plain. When she starts telling you the story, put any craving for hollow distractions in the bin.
Written by Tony Award-winning British playwright Dennis Kelly (Matilda the Musical, Utopia) and directed by Eleanor Bishop (Gravity & Grace, Heartbreak Hotel) with the intimate grittiness of a loved one’s bloodstained, sweat-soaked clothing, Girls & Boys is a brutally human and exceptional story of love, despair and toxic masculinity. And it’s telling when a performance receives a standing ovation from a packed theatre on its first night, even after already achieving critical acclaim in London and New York.
Romilly (King Lear, Grand Horizons) is outstanding. Despite a minor slip-up in lines, her ability to portray sensitive and complex themes such as domestic violence with the vulnerability, passion, and energy she did – and for the entire hour and 50 minutes – was incredible. It was hard to believe that this was, in fact, her first solo role.
Her charm immediately wraps you into a safe space – then it feels like the rug is pulled hard and fast from under your feet as harmful masculine tropes take your hand and walk you to a tragedy. We learn fast that this Woman With A Story To Tell is a Londoner from a working-class background. Her personality is infectious – and bloody hilarious. Despite her hard shell, Romilly’s character so openly invites you into her vulnerability, and you see what drives her. She has a way of disarming you. It’s like you’ve met her before.
The show begins with the woman telling the audience how she met her husband. What ensues is what you would expect for a “perfectly nuclear family”. Passion, marriage, buying a home, kids, exhaustion. Despite the mundanity of domestic life, the woman’s fiery passion for a career – the way she fought to get her job as the PA to the assistant of a development director in documentary film-making in a hilarious scene – and her bravery to say what she actually feels (”It was dirty, messy and slaggy”) was exciting.
But when the marriage started to fall apart, it wasn’t entirely a surprise. Without revealing too much, Kelly’s script powerfully provokes the masculine psyche in a way that leaves you without a doubt the husband is a catastrophe in the making.
Girls & Boys is all about the story. From Tracy Grant Lord’s starkly minimalistic set and costume design to the poignant lighting work by Filament Eleven 11′s Rachel Marlow and Bradley Gledhill, everything was stripped back in a compounding effect that volumised what Romilly’s character wanted to tell you. The creative use of the revolving stage, and the soft, ethereal music composition by Victoria Kelly and Te Aihe Butler’s sound design allowed a seamless passing of time and scenes, which gave the solo show the flexibility it needed.
Despite occasional waves of discomfort from heart-wounding themes, the creatives made sure there was nowhere to run; they needed us to listen. But running often is the knee-jerk reaction in the face of matrimonial despair. You could easily mimic this story that appears ordinary yet is anything but to what any of us can – and do – experience in the real world.
And, perhaps, that was always the point.

What: Girls & Boys
Who: Written by Dennis Kelly, presented by Auckland Theatre Company
Where and when: ASB Waterfront Theatre until September 22

Varsha Anjali is a multimedia journalist for the Herald. Based in Auckland, she covers travel, theatre and more.

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